"The question I really want to answer is: How can I live a fuller life, a happier life, a more productive life?" said someone in a recent e-mail about Quantified Self.
This made me think: The ideal life differs from person to person. What kind of awesome life am I moving towards? What motivates my choices and experiments, and how can I explore and learn more effectively?
I have role models for this, so I can imagine what it looks like. I can look at the differences between our lives to get a better understanding of the gaps and divergences.
My parents have full, happy, productive, and significant lives (although I think my mom thinks that what she's doing isn't as awesome or as significant as what my dad does). They make things happen. In particular, my dad touches lots of people's lives. He has this really big scope.
W- lives a full, happy, productive life. I think he focuses on doing a good job at work, doing the right thing, knowing (and applying!) all sorts of good knowledge, and being a great husband and dad. We're probably not going to get added to any tribal epics or history books, but that's okay. I tend to think of his scope as smaller, more local, and he's totally awesome within it. He sometimes reaches beyond that scope to support interesting things, like Kickstarters for well-designed products.
I think I live a decently full, happy, and productive life as well. Definitely yes to the happy bit; yay for high genetic set-points for happiness, good coping mechanisms, and a tremendous amount of luck. I keep some slack in my life, so I don't feel like it's super-full or super-productive. But people tell me that I do a lot, so maybe this is like the way my mom's not as sure about her own contributions. I could probably do more, but this is as good a start as any.
My scope tends to be similar to W-'s, focusing on our little world. But I also have these odd outgrowths for things like Emacs, visual thinking, social business, Hacklab… These aren't as driven as my dad's initiatives or my friends' startups. They're more… curiosity-based, maybe? I enjoy exploring those playgrounds and sharing what I'm learning. I think W- is like this too - he follows his curiosity into new areas.
So, if that helps me understand a little of who I am now, what does that tell me about the future Sacha I'm gradually inching towards, and what experiments can help me learn more?
I imagine Awesome Sacha to be this capable, curious person with lots of skills, including practical DIY stuff. Her equanimity and optimism lets her handle whatever life throws at her (and learn from it!). Maybe she's more involved in the community now, helping her favourite causes, but probably more from a position of lifting people up rather than going on crusades. She takes plenty of notes and shares them, helping other people learn faster and see the connections among different ideas.
If that's a potentially interesting Future Sacha I could become, what can I track to measure my progress along the way, and what kinds of experiments could stretch me a little bit more towards that?

I can pick up and practise more skills: Cooking, sewing, electronics, DIY repair, etc. I can track this through journal entries, blog posts, comfort level, and decisions to do things myself versus asking or paying someone else to do things. For example, I now feel comfortable cooking, and I remember feeling a lot more uncertain about it before. I feel moderately okay about repairing small appliances and doing simple woodworking, but could use more practice. I have hardly any experience with plumbing or tiling.

I can observe more, and write about more of what I'm learning: The little hiccups and challenges in my life feel so much smaller than the ones that other people go through, and I usually don't write about them. Keeping a journal (even for the small stuff) might result in interesting reading later on, though. I already bounce back pretty quickly. It might be interesting to see how I respond to larger and larger changes, though, so deliberately taking on more commitments and more risks can help me develop this part of my life.

I can help out more. I think it's okay even if I don't try to maximize utility on this for now. I'll start with the things that resonate with me. It's easy enough to track hours and money for this; maybe later I can add stories too.

I can get better at taking, organizing, and sharing my notes. I can see the gap in my note-taking by noticing when I'm annoyed that I can't find my old notes (either because I hadn't written them up properly or I didn't make them findable enough). As for organizing and sharing my notes, perhaps I can track the number of longer guides I put together, and whether I can get the hang of working with outlines and pipelines…

Most of my little experiments come from looking at ideas that are close by and saying, "Hmm, that's interesting. Maybe I can explore that." Sometimes it helps to look a little further ahead–to sketch out an ideal life, or even just a slightly-better-than-this life–and to plan little steps forward, going roughly in the right direction. Some ideals fit you better than others do, and some ideals just won't resonate with you. For example, I currently don't wish to be a highly-paid jetsetting public speaker. Thinking about this helps you figure out what kind of future you might want, and maybe figure out a few ways to try it on for size and track your progress as you grow into it.
What kind of person would Awesome You be like, and how can you inch a little closer?

Do you talk about what you do and how you do it? Or do you start with why you do the things you do and why this matters? In Start With Why (2009), Simon Sinek writes about how great companies have a clear purpose and identity that inspires employees and earns customer loyalty. Here's my sketch of the key points from the book so that they're easier to review or share. Click on the image to view or download a high-resolution version that you can print.
What are my whys?

Visual thinking

My selfish reason for visual thinking is because I want to be able to learn, think, and remember more effectively, so that I can live a better life.

My altruistic reason for sharing visual thinking is because there are lots of people who enjoy learning from drawings more than text or audio or video. I want to share how I'm learning, but more than that, I want to inspire people to take these techniques and use them for their own. From the resources I share, people can see that you don't need to draw particularly well in order to use doodling as a way to explore the world or untangle your thoughts.

Emacs

My selfish reason for Emacs is because I have fun tweaking my editing environment and doing so helps me work better. It tickles my brain. In addition, helping the Emacs community thrive contributes to the longevity of Emacs, which means it will keep growing, which means I probably won't have to switch to some other tool in the future. (Planning-ahead Sacha plans ahead!)

My altruistic reason for Emacs is because I think something incredible happens when you take control of your tools, shaping them to fit your needs, expanding your imagination along the way. I want to help people become intermediate users and power users because I'm curious about what they'll build for themselves and what they can share with other people. Also, the Emacs community has awesome people. =)

Experimenting

My selfish reason for experimenting (lifestyle, semi-retirement, business, ideas, etc.) is so that I can figure out what works well for me.

My altruistic reason for sharing my experiments is to encourage other people to question their assumptions, look for ways to test their hypotheses, and gradually shape a life that fits them well. Come to think of it, it's similar to why I like helping people personalize Emacs. If I can help people explore the possibilities in their life, we might come across interesting ideas along the way.

What are your whys? Why do you do what you do, and why does that matter?
Get "Start With Why" on Amazon (affiliate link) or from your favourite book source.
Like this sketch? Check out http://sketchedbooks.com/ for more. Feel free to share – it’s under the Creative Commons Attribution License, like the rest of my blog.

One issue I have is prioritization. I sometimes find myself spending a lot of time on low-impact activities. How do you tackle this in your life? What's the most important thing you're working on right now?

It's easy to feel that most of your time is taken up with trivial things. There's taking care of yourself and the household. There are endless tasks to check off to-do lists. There's paperwork and overhead. Sometimes it feels like you're making very little progress.
Here are some things I've learned that help me with that feeling:

Understand and embrace your constraints.

Lay the groundwork for action by understanding yourself.

Act in tune with yourself.

Accumulate gradual progress.

1. UNDERSTAND AND EMBRACE YOUR CONSTRAINTS
Many productivity and time management books seem to have the mindset where your Real Work is what matters and the rest of your life is what gets in the way. Sometimes it feels like the goal is to be able to work a clear, focused 60-hour or 120-hour week, to squeeze out every last bit of productivity from every last moment.
For me, the unproductive time that I spend snuggling with W- or the cats - that's Real Life right there, for me, and I'm often all too aware of how short life is. The low-impact stuff is what grounds me and makes me human. As Richard Styrman points out in this comment, if other people can focus for longer, it's because the rest of their lives don't pull on them as much. I like the things that pull on me.
Instead of fighting your constraints, understand and embrace them. You can tweak them later, but when you make plans or evaluate yourself, do so with a realistic acceptance of the different things that pull on you. Know where you're starting from. Then you can review commitments, get rid of ones that you've been keeping by default, and reaffirm the ones that you do care about. You might even find creative ways to meet your commitments with less time or effort. In any case, knowing your constraints and connecting them to the commitments behind them will make it it easier to remember and appreciate the reason why you spend time on these things.
One of my favourite ways of understanding constraints is to actually track them. Let's look at time, for example. I know I spend a lot of my time on the general running of things. A quick summary from my time-tracking gives me this breakdown of the 744 hours in Oct 2014, a fairly typical month:

Hours

Activity

255.0

sleep

126.3

consulting, because it helps me make a difference and build skills

91.9

doing other business-related things

80.5

chores and other unpaid work

86.2

taking care of myself

38.3

playing, relaxing

30.4

family-related stuff

12.6

socializing

10.3

writing, because it helps me learn and connect with great people

7.4

working on Emacs, because it helps me learn and connect with great people

1.5

gardening

1.0

reading

0.5

tracking

1.7

woodworking

Assuming that my consulting, writing, and working on Emacs are the activities that have some impact on the wider world, that's 144 hours out of 744, or about 19% of all the time I have. This is roughly 4.5 hours a day. (And that's a generous assumption - many of the things I write are personal reflections of uncertain value to other people.)
Even with tons of control over my schedule, I also spend lots of time on low-impact activities. And this is okay. I'm fine with that. I don't need to turn into a value-creating machine entirely devoted to the pursuit of one clear goal. I don't think I even can. It works for other people, but not for me. I like the time I spend cooking and helping out around the house. I like the time I spend playing with interesting ideas. I like the pace I keep.
So I'm going to start with the assumption that this is the time that I can work with instead of being frustrated with the other things that fill my life.
An average of 4.5 hours a day is a lot, even if it's broken up into bits and pieces. It's enough time for me to write a deep reflection, sketch one or two books, work on some code... And day after day, if I add those hours up, that can become something interesting. Of course, it would probably add up to something more impressive if I picked one thing and focused on that. But I tend to enjoy a variety of interests, so I might as well work with that instead of against it, and sometimes the combinations can be fascinating.
Accepting your constraints doesn't mean being locked into them. You can still tweak things. For example, I experiment with time-saving techniques like bulk-cooking. But starting from the perspective of accepting your limits lets you plan more realistically and minimize frustration, which means you don't have to waste energy on beating yourself up for not being superhuman. Know what you can work with, and work with that.
You might consider tracking your time for a week to see where your time really goes. You can track your time with pen and paper, a spreadsheet, or freely-available tools for smartphones. The important part is to track your time as you use it instead of relying on memory or perception. Our minds lie to us about constraints, often exaggerating what we're dealing with. Collect data and find out.
2. LAY THE GROUNDWORK FOR ACTION BY UNDERSTANDING YOURSELF
When I review my constraints and commitments, I often ask myself: "Why did I commit to this? Why is this my choice?" This understanding helps me appreciate those constraints and come up with good ways to work within them.
My ideal is to almost always work on whatever I feel like working on. This sounds like a recipe for procrastination, an easy way for near-term pleasurable tasks to crowd out important but tedious ones. That's where preparing my mind can make a big difference. If I can prepare a list of good things to do that's in tune with my values, then I can easily choose from that list.
Here are some questions that help me prepare:

Why do I feel like doing various things? Is there an underlying cause or unmet need that I can address? Am I avoiding something because I don't understand it or myself well enough? Do I only think that I want something, or do I really want it? I do a lot of this thinking and planning throughout my life, so that when those awesome hours come when everything's lined up and I'm ready to make something, I can just go and do it.

Can I deliberately direct my awareness in order to change how I feel about things by emphasizing positive aspects or de-emphasizing negative ones? What can I enjoy about the things that are good for me? What can I dislike about the things that are bad for me?

What can I do now to make things better later? How can I take advantage of those moments when I'm focused and everything comes together? How can I make better use of normal moments? How can I make better use of the gray times too, when I'm feeling bleah?

How can I slowly accumulate value? How can I scale up by making things available?

I think a lot about why I want to do something, because there are often many different paths that can lead to the same results. If I catch myself procrastinating a task again and again, I ask myself if I can get rid of the task or if I can get someone else to do it. If I really need to do it myself, maybe I can transform the task into something more enjoyable. If I find myself drawn to some other task instead, I ask myself why, and I learn a little more about myself in the process.
I plan for small steps, not big leaps. Small steps sneak under my threshold for intimidation - it's easier to find time and energy for a 15-minute task than for a 5-day slog.
I don't worry about whether I'm working on Important things. Instead, I try to keep a list full of small, good things that take me a little bit forward. Even if I proceed at my current pace–for example, accumulating a blog post a day–in twenty years, I'll probably be somewhere interesting.
In addition to the mental work of understanding yourself and shifting your perceptions by paying deliberate attention, it's also good to prepare other things that can help you make the most of high-energy, high-concentration times. For example, even when I don't feel very creative, I can still read books and outline ideas in preparation for writing. I sketch screens and plan features when I don't feel like programming. You can probably find lots of ways you can prepare so that you can work more effectively when you want to.
3. ACT IN TUNE WITH YOURSELF
For many people, motivation seems to be about forcing yourself to do something that you had previously decided was important.
If you've laid the groundwork from step 2, however, you probably have a list of many good things that you can work on, so you can work on whatever you feel like working on now.
Encountering resistance? Have a little conversation with yourself. Find out what the core of it is, and see if you can find a creative way around that or work on some other small thing that moves you forward.
4. ACCUMULATE GRADUAL PROGRESS.
So now you're doing what you want to be doing, after having prepared so that you want to do good things. But there's still that shadow of doubt in you: "Is this going to be enough?"
It might not seem like you're making a lot of progress, especially if you're taking small steps on many different trails. This is where keeping track of your progress becomes really important. Celebrate those small accomplishments. Take notes. Your memory is fuzzy and will lie to you. It's hard to see growth when you look at it day by day. If you could use your notes (or a journal, or a blog) to look back over six months or a year, though, chances are you'll see that you've come a long way. And if you haven't, don't get frustrated; again, embrace your constraints, deepen your understanding, and keep nibbling away at what you want to do.
For me, I usually use my time to learn something, writing and drawing along the way. I've been blogging for the past twelve years or so. It's incredible how those notes have helped me remember things, and how even the little things I learn can turn out to be surprisingly useful. Step by step.
So, if you're feeling frustrated because you don't seem to be making any progress and yet you can't force yourself to work on the things that you've decided are important, try a different approach:

Understand and embrace your constraints. Don't stress out about not being 100% productive or dedicated. Accept that there will be times when you're distracted or sick, and there will be times when you're focused and you can do lots of good stuff. Accepting this still lets you tweak your limits, but you can do that with a spirit of loving kindness instead of frustration.

Lay the groundwork for action. Mentally prepare so that it's easier for you to want what's good for you, and prepare other things so that when you want to work on something, you can work more effectively.

Act in tune with yourself. Don't waste energy forcing yourself through resistance. Use your preparation time to find creative ways around your blocks and come up with lots of ways you can move forward. That way, you can always choose something that's in line with how you feel.

Accumulate gradual progress. Sometimes you only feel like you're not making any progress because you don't see how far you've come. Take notes. Better yet, share those notes. Then you can see how your journey of a thousand miles is made up of all those little steps you've been taking - and you might even be able to help out or connect with other people along the way.

Alan has a much better summary of it, though. =)

To paraphrase, you start by examining your desires because that's the only way to know if they're worthwhile pursuits. This thinking prepares you and gives you with a set of things to spend time on immediately whenever you have time, and because you understand your goals & desires and the value they add to your life, you are usually satisfied with the time you do spend.

There's the 10X Hero Programmer idea of someone who can brilliantly cut through the clutter and write just the code that's needed to solve the problem you didn't know you had. Awesomeness might involve being able to perceive the true need, bring together different components, and create something solid.

There are architects and team enablers who can work within organizations (both formal and informal) to make bigger things happen. Awesomeness might involve balancing multiple trade-offs, keeping track of complex structures, and using soft skills to get stuff done.

There are people who envision products and services, bringing them to the people who need them. They might create things themselves, or they might invest in forming a team to create things.

There are people who create bridges for other people so that they can get started or they can develop their skills. Awesomeness might involve presenting things in a clear, logical, inspiring, and useful manner. Plenty of role models doing cool stuff in this area, and lots of ways to grow.

Oh, that's interesting. That makes sense to me. I can see myself growing into that last one. It fits the things that tickle my brain.
I don't have to worry about doing Clever Things or Big Things. As I get better at doing what I already enjoy doing, sharing what I'm learning and helping other people along the way, I'll find my own path to awesomeness.

I've been thinking about motives and bigger dreams lately. I have a good foundation for experiments, and I probably should be building something bigger on top of it. But I don't resonate with the entrepreneurial stories of passion and focus. I don't start with a vision of how the world should be and then work backwards from there in order to make it reality. I don't dream of dollars or media mentions when starting an experiment. So if those aren't the things that get me going, what does?

2014-10-21 Exploring my current motives

A couple of recent decisions are helping me learn more about my motives. Over dinner, one of the Hacklab board members asked me if I would consider helping with bookkeeping, since the current volunteer was struggling with some of the work. After some deliberation, I agreed to help out. I noticed that my reasons for doing so were primarily because I felt Hacklab board had good people in it, and that solid financial information could help us navigate this somewhat precarious period.
On another note, I'm wrapping up the consulting engagement I've been working on for the past two and a half years. I said yes to that primarily because the person who asked me had good karma. He had helped me get into and make the most of IBM, so I wanted to help him and his team as well.
These two decisions helped me realize how strongly I'm motivated by helping specific people, versus being motivated by a grand vision, the desire to help a general class of people, or other reasons. I hadn't realized the extent before, but now that I look closely, I can see how it plays out. I like prototyping because I can quickly build things with lots of feedback from people who will actually be using the tools. I like automation because I can save specific people time and effort. I like helping people with Emacs because of the individual quirks of their workflows.
I do have other motives, too. Sometimes I do things out of curiosity and because they tickle my brain. Tracking data and tweaking Emacs for myself belong to this category. Sometimes I do things because I think they will be useful, like writing and drawing.
I feel like I have small-m motives rather than the big-M Motives you read about in the biographies of people who change the world. I like working on a small, personal scale. Does that mean I should just focus on small dreams, gradually growing them in size? Are these motives something I can tinker with, work around, or transform into even better strengths?

2014-10-22 People who follow similar motivations well

Fortunately, I can look around me for role models living good lives following similar motivations. My parents also seem highly motivated by helping specific people. For example, my dad wanted to help one boy with autism who was interested in photography. That grew into a large initiative called Photography with a Difference. He's also motivated by curiosity and crazy ideas, like the way he decided to go on a cross-country ultralight flight. My mom was once asked about passion and work. She replied, "John's passion is photography. My passion is John." She focused on building an advertising photography business so that my dad could do amazing things behind the camera. W- seems motivated by helping specific people, too, and he also focuses on doing things well. Many of my friends who are into programming are into it because of curiosity and the joy of creation (it helps that it pays the bills, too!). On my best days, I do what I do because I get to help specific people, follow my curiosity, and build resources that might be useful.
So if you can live a good life even with "small-scale" motives like this (compared to, say, the desire to reshape the world), what does that mean for me? How can I make things a little bit better? And--just to play with the idea--what would it be like if I had different motives?

2014-10-21 Reflecting on my primary motives

I'm not strongly influenced by everyone, but since I do have that desire to help specific people, I can be deliberate about the people I spend time with and include in this consideration. It works out well if helping people out also helps me build skills and resources. It also works out well if I can expand to a group of good people, so I'm not anchored by only one person. For example, having gotten to know the rest of the team during my consulting gig, I feel like they're also good people I'm happy to help.
I want to balance the people motive, though. This is such a strong pull on my brain, and it's so tempting to work on other people's tasks instead of following my own curiosities or developing my own things. I can de-emphasize this by being selective about the tasks I take on, picking the things that are best-aligned to what I want to learn or do anyway. I can also carve off time for self-directed interests, since I'll probably benefit from training myself to get even better at following curiosity and making things I can build on later.
It would probably be very difficult to swap out my motives, going from concrete to abstract, even if it would theoretically be interesting to do so. Ah well. I'll start by working with what I have, but it might be interesting to see if I can experiment with being an Alternate Universe Sacha just in case I discover I actually like it.
Anyway, what kinds of things do I want to be able to do with slightly tweaked motives?

2014-10-22 What would I like to be able to do with sustained motivation

I think it would be interesting to play around with Emacs, open source, and other tools, getting the hang of building more resources. It would probably be good to be able to fully enjoy DIY skills (including sewing) and other things that are good for me, like exercise. If I can notice things about these activities that line up with the things that currently motivate me -- or tweak my motivations so that I like more of the things that are good for me -- maybe that will make this stuff easier to do and easier to stick with.
Hmm...

What do I want to do with my life? Is it worth the trade-offs? How can I make it more worthwhile?
If I’m clear about the meaning of my life and I know that it’s worth the challenges (like travel!) along the way, then relentless optimism will kick in and show me the silver lining to whatever happens. =)
So, what do I want to do with my life?
I want to share what I’m learning. This matters because it means other people can build on what I’ve figured out, and maybe they’ll be inspired to share what they’re learning, too. I don’t need travel in order to share, but travel helps me learn from other people.
I want to help figure out how people can connect and work together all around the world. This matters because I want people to be able to do their best wherever they are, not limited by the geographic lottery. Someday I’ll be able to do this without travel. Right now, sometimes I need to be there in person.
I want to live an awesome life. This matters because I can train people to do most of what I do at work, but I can’t delegate love or experiences. I worry that travel might get in the way of this, but if I learn how to do things better, maybe I can use travel to enrich life.
What can I do to make travel better for work, relationships and life?

I can lighten W-'s load. This could include arranging for cat sitting or dropping the cats off at a cat hotel, doing extra chores before/after the trip to share the workload, taking transit or a cab, and so on.

I can meet up with more people and sit in more meetings, like the wonderful times I had in Cambridge and in London.

I can try different kinds of food each time, and make more of an effort to get to restaurants with great reviews.

I can take my gym clothes along and use the exercise facilities at the hotel. This might mean checking in, as my carry-on is often tightly packed with electronics and travel-ready business clothes. Who knows, maybe it would be great to bring along a folding bicycle. Mel Chua does that. =)

I can skip watching television or old movies. If I didn’t think it was worth finding and watching, then it’s probably not worth watching just because it’s there. I can spend the time writing or reading instead.

I can fill my iPod with interesting e-books and audiobooks. Time to go through the classics I haven’t read yet…

I can wake up earlier, since I don’t need to worry about disturbing anyone.

I can set up a calling card, or pay for the Net connection.

Hmm… I just need to figure out how to look at this, and then everything will move more smoothly.